


nobody ever said life was free

by homestarrunners



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Gen, Mad Scientists, Reanimation, hes ok but he died, more tags will be added later idk where im going with this, what happened to paul?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-07 06:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20305309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homestarrunners/pseuds/homestarrunners
Summary: This is a very self-indulgent reanimation fic that has been sitting in my drafts for like a month, so here we are! Halloween came early!





	1. it's a beautiful body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Birth is always painful.

Darkness.  
Only void swallowing him, he laid on the metal table.  
A click. A pulse. Light.  
His eyes adjust, getting used to the lamp stationed above his eyes and getting used to the cold surface beneath him. He would shiver, but his senses had dulled enough that it was just cool. He was cool. And he realized that it wasn’t really him on the table, it was just his body, and he was floating, sight blurry and memories fuzzy. Everything about him vague and ill-defined, like he wasn’t really human.  
A voice.  
“Professor, are you sure this is ethical?”  
A scoff, presumably from the professor.  
“It’s not like he’s going anywhere… Yet,” he added, clicking a pen. “Would you like to do the honors?”  
A pause.  
“Christ, Emma, be careful. Find the vein, I’ve taught you how to do this—” “Only on living people! This is different! This guy doesn’t have a pulse, give me a second, there we go—“  
A dull pain on his forearm. As whatever was in that syringe circulates through his body, it starts burning. The pain elevates. He returns to his body, and he suddenly feels more than he’s felt in a long time. He feels the cold of the table in it’s entirety, feels the burning in his veins as a searing pain. In this moment he is naked, freezing, and very, very, afraid.  
His eyes open. There is a man standing very close, leaning over him. He can feel the man’s breath on his face. The man (this must be the professor, he rationalizes) stands up, presses a hand to his chest. The pressure feels nice, almost. “We have a pulse, Emma,” says the Professor enthusiastically. Emma grins, looking at him— and at that moment, the first time he ever saw her, she was beautiful. 

He tries to remember his name. Paul. Paul. That’s him. He’s Paul. He died. He’s being given a second chance. Emma and the Professor performed a blood pressure test, and checked his hearing and his eyesight. They made sure his joints worked the way they were supposed to. At one point, they’d given him a thick fleece blanket “because you’re gonna run cold for a few weeks,” which he was grateful for. The Professor ends up carrying him up to a room with a bed, laying him on it. He switches on a small space heater. “Paul, tomorrow afternoon Emma’s coming to work on you some more, but for now she’s leaving. In the meantime, I’m Henry Hidgens. You’re in my house right now. I know you can’t move, but it’s because your muscle has atrophied. Try to sleep now, because a you’ll feel a lot better if you do.” He leaves and closes the door softly behind him.  
The burning had become a dull ache in his muscles and joints, no doubt connected to the gradual decay of his body over the last few days. Or perhaps weeks, he’s not sure. He closes his eyelids and drifts off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if emma used paul as her biology project....haha just kidding... unless...
> 
> Anyways if you wanna talk or whatever hmu my tumblr is homestarredrunner
> 
> The title of this fic is from Freedom of Choice by Devo


	2. nothing else can save me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul finds that a lot of things are harder after you've been dead.

When Paul woke up, he didn't really hurt anymore. Unfortunately, this was about to be challenged by the girl currently lounging in a chair in the corner of the room, draped across the arms, legs crossed at the ankles. The second time Paul ever saw her, she was still the most beautiful person he'd ever seen.  
"Hi, " Emma said, swinging her legs off of the arm of the chair, adjusting to sit up a little straighter. She takes a clipboard from a side table. "You're awake!"  
She takes a few steps toward the bed, and sits beside his legs. Now that she's closer, Paul gets a good look at her- short, with brown hair pulled into a low ponytail with a yellow #2 pencil tucked behind her ear.  
"Okay, so- can you talk? It would be awesome if you could talk but I get it if you can't." She takes the pencil out.  
Paul tries. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, even, as if to prove to her that he could.  
"Don't be hard on yourself, you were dead yesterday! It can take a while. Can you sit up?"  
He can do that. The problem is that it _hurts,_ and it takes him a while. A few tears well up in his eyes and threaten to fall, and a few do, but Emma pretends to not notice.  
"Good job!" Emma says, sounding a little condescending even though she probably didn't mean to, like she's talking to a puppy or a little kid. She scribbles something on her clipboard.  
"Okay! Let's get you dressed and we can start working."  
Paul definitely looks concerned about that, and he is, for numerous reasons. What constitutes 'work'? If sitting up was hard for him, what would everything else be like? Also, he feels really self conscious about his body even though he knows that Emma's seen it before, that she'd almost certainly been "working" on it for weeks before he was ready for reanimation.  
Emma sees the concern on his face, she's so observant.  
"Don't worry, work is just heading downstairs and getting you some breakfast." She glances at the clock. "Or maybe lunch. Depends on how long this takes."  
She stands up and rummages around in the closet for a few seconds, pulling out a shirt. "Put your arms up! Not in, like, a police way. Maybe in a party way, though."  
He sticks his arms up and they immediately get tired in the same way that they used to at the end of a workout. But he keeps his arms up, in the effort to seem stoic to Emma, which is _definitely_ a lost cause. She sort of wrestles the shirt over his head, and it's a struggle. She laughs a little.  
"Oh, _man_ will I be glad when you can do this yourself. Can you stand up?"  
And at her command, almost like clockwork, he rises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY these are so short!!! Im just trying to get them out quick so I can move on to the next thing. Short attention span yadda yadda yadda
> 
> Also sorry that I cant come up with creative names for the chapters; I only have so many brain cells. This ones from an ABBA song.
> 
> https://homestarredrunner.tumblr.com


	3. tour de france

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inherent trauma of breakfast and going up and down the stairs

The first step hurt the most, but Paul managed to grit his teeth and bear it, find a way to be fine. Emma stood beside him and guided him, and he clung to her like he was going to fall over at any minute, and he was. She lead him down the stairs, and his knees shook like they would buckle under his weight. He sucked in a sharp breath.   
"Yeah, this part sucks," Emma says, "If you want to take a break you can."   
And Paul's grateful for it, he's glad that she said that, but he still powers through the rest of the staircase and the short walk to the kitchen. Emma pulls a chair out for him, and gently sort of pushes him into it. It's all he can do to avoid completely collapsing. He's breathing hard, tears mixing with sweat on his cheeks.   
It's then when it really hits him, that it's gonna be a while until he can use his body the way he could when he was alive. But still, his heartbeat drums on, fast, but as he calms down, slow and heavy. In the background, Emma's talking about breakfast. Perched on the granite countertop, she rattles off various things she could make.  
"How 'bout scrambled eggs? And coffee? Professor Hidgens always has good coffee," she says, talking more to herself than to him. He forces himself to nod. He doesn’t really want to eat- he was able to open and close his mouth earlier, but he feels like the act of eating will exhaust him, and then he’d have to go back up the stairs, which he dreads.   
Emma cracks a few eggs over the skillet, and grinds coffee beans before putting them in a coffee maker and turning it on. It all smells so good, and he hasn’t smelled anything for _so long_.   
The food is done before too long, and Emma gives him coffee in a sippy cup and a small plate of eggs. “Listen,” she says, even though Paul already gets it, “I know it’s not a lot of food, but if you want more I’ll give it to you.” He nods again.   
It’s a hard effort to raise the fork to his mouth and eat the eggs, but once he starts it gets a little easier. They’re good, they’re the first thing he’s tasted since he woke up. He takes a sip of coffee. It’s simple, but with Emma eating across the table with him, it feels almost like communion.

And then it’s done, and he’s shakily getting up from his seat, and Emma’s rushing to hold him at the elbow. She leads him into the hall and a few doors down, into a sort of cozy reading-type room.   
“Uh, I thought that maybe you could pick out some books to read, because I have to leave to work a shift at Beanie’s in an hour. And I don’t want you to be bored because Hidgens won’t be back for a while.”  
He nods. He picks out two books, both poetry, and Emma starts to bring him back up the stairs.   
It’s a long journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long!! I'm back for now though
> 
> homestarredrunner.tumblr.com


End file.
